EDL founder Alan Ayling suspended from his management post

It has been reported that the founder and key funder of the English Defence League has been suspended from his management post in the City.

Alan Ayling, who is said to have used the alias 'Alan Lake' was suspended by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development after he was named as the EDL's founder, according to UAF.org.uk.

The EBRD was set up by international treaty to fund development and privatisation schemes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

With regards to his suspension, a spokesperson for the bank is reported to have said,

The EBRD became aware of various allegations made about a member of the bank’s staff in mid-December. The bank immediately launched an investigation into these allegations. The member of staff was suspended from duties pending the outcome of this investigation. The investigation is still ongoing.

The identity of Ayling's alias was revealed in an investigation by the Sunday Times back in December, revealing his influential role and residence in a prestigious development in London's Barbican.

It was at Ayling's flat where the founding meeting of the EDL was held back in 2009, bringing together Stephen Yaxley Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson), now the EDL’s leader, and members of the shadowy “counterjihad” network of anti-Muslim racists of which Lake/Ayling is a key part.

Ayling was also interviewed as a witness as part of the Norwegian police's investigation into the massacre by gunman Anders Behring Breivik, who is said to have had links with far-right groups including the EDL.

Ayling denied meeting Breivik but had described his appalling killing of 76 people at a socialist youth camp as 'chickens come home to roost'.

Archived Comments

It is right for someone to lose their job because of the political views that they hold? We are supposed to be living in a democracy with freedom of thought and speech, including political thought and speech.

People should be prosecuted for crimes and criminal activity yes.

But is it right for someone to lose their job and their livelihood over their political views? It just turns them into a martyr.

Is it right to suspend him for expressing his thoughts and politcal opinions? I think it depends on how those views are expressed over a given period of

time.

What did Alan Ayling mean when he wrote on his blog in April 2011 that "the best we can do is try shock 'the masses' out of their complacency"? Or

that that the "chickens have come home to roost"? This would be Spring 2011, around the time that Breivik was making threatening calls to the

Norwegian Government.

When demands for the murder of David Cameron and the Archbishop of Durham are made, you have to decide whether he is expressing a radical

opinion or encouraging radical action.

This would make him no different to equally despicable radicals like Abu Hamza al-Masri (Captain Hook) who was (according to Wiki!) "charged with

16 crimes under the provisions of various British statutes, including encouraging the murder of non-Muslims, and intent to stir up racial hatred".

I think if we are to extend clemency and understanding to the views expressed by people like Ayling, we'd have to extend them to people like Abu

Hamza al-Masri.

And frankly, I think we could well do without that kind of legal precedent. The sooner the law acts decisively on this, the sooner we can stop appeals being launched by the likes of Abu Hamza al-Masri based on such inequalities.

I think first and foremost we ought really be careful not to let these developments escalate into a trial-by-meida situation. Regardless of this man's politics, we should let due process prevail.

That said, it seems astonishing that the people who worked with this man at such high-levels of Civil Society for so many years had no inkling of his politics. His past and present partners at his property company Bridgewater House RTM included such respectable people as Penny Jonas, a fund director at Temple Church, Jim Thornton, a lay-preacher and former Conservative Councillor in Hertford and Bob Humphreys who now heads up IS and Finance at Oxfam. Thornton's father was even a director at the London City Mission! One of the most committed Christian Missions in the UK. Their director is Group Counsel at Barclays!

His partners in Pacific Capital Investments also included the likes of Micheal Collins who was recently appointed President of the European Chamber of Commerce (Eurochambers) in Singapore. Karen (onsoyen) Tan is another. A young and gifted investor who is now a Director of a hedge fund group at Deutsche Bank - also in Singapore.

A few weeks ago we were also told that another EDL donor, Ann Marchini has been employed for 17 years by Sir Howard Hogdkin. Marchini was also a business partner of Michael J Hermann - a respectable British author and expert on Economic Growth in Eastern Europe who has his publishing company in the Czech Republic.

Are we to accept that none of these people were aware of either Ayling's or Marchini's more radical opinions?

My biggest fear are not the few isolated extremists that make up the rank and file of the EDL but the culture of selective hearing and selective ignorance that allows such views to swell.

"I think if we are to extend clemency and understanding to the views expressed by people like Ayling, we'd have to extend them to people like Abu Hamza al-Masri. And frankly, I think we could well do without that kind of legal precedent. The sooner the law acts decisively on this, the sooner we can stop appeals being launched by the likes of Abu Hamza al-Masri based on such inequalities."

Prophetic words indeed!

Today's headlines:

“Abu Qatada to be freed on bail within days. Special immigration appeals commission to consider bail conditions for cleric detained for six and a half years”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/06/abu-qatada-freed-bail?newsfeed=true

Afterall this time the law decides it is powerless to prevent the release of a radical Islamic cleric even though there is sufficient evidence of Abu Qatada inciting violence.

Are those at the Bar Council already putting a plan in motion to see the likes of Alan Ayling and his well-heeled friends escape formal charges?

Our communities need neither polarity. Having either group in our communities is a recipe for disaster; rather like having two extreme weather fronts collide. They have the potential to destroy both communities.